FragBox 2 Failure Ruffles Falcon Feathers

[tomv]

I still firmly stand by our opinions of the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. I would neither use one in my personal system, nor any system that I might build due to the stability issues I have seen with it in the past. The chipset might be fine for email and Web surfing boxes, but it is not a good solution for gamers.

First, it sounds like you ordered a system for review purposes when you had no intention of giving it a positive review. A very poor mindset for someone who is supposed to be fair and impartial.

Second, to say that you were evaluating the whole out-of-box/tech support experience is misleading. The only way to properly evaluate all of that would be to order dozens of PCs and average the results. It would be very easy to encounter one execellent system from a very bad company or to run into a lemon from a good company.

Therefore, HardOCP should not have posted the review until all problems were resolved and after the system had been re-evaluated in working condition.

Now you have many posters making across the board observations about ATI chipsets and this computer company all based on one flawed computer.

Also, it now seems to be accepted practice on some websites to air the behind the scenes dialog in full public view. When a website becomes highly opinionated and agressive like this I think it shows a lack of professionalism.

 

[JOESKURTU]

I happen to have one of these boards in question at home in an Aspire X Pack case with a 6800 GT in it. It ran flawlessly until Saturday when I fired up Battlefield 2 and got nothing but studdering. The memory timings are screwed up, and have been for awhile. You can set the CAS latency but nothing else. I end up with 2-3-3-8 timings for Corsair Pro 3200XL ram. I will be dumping this board, it doesn't have any overclocking features anyway.

I think you are on to something. THE PROBLEM IS BF2!!

 

[FrgMstr]

First, it sounds like you ordered a system for review purposes when you had no intention of giving it a positive review. A very poor mindset for someone who is supposed to be fair and impartial.

Second, to say that you were evaluating the whole out-of-box/tech support experience is misleading. The only way to properly evaluate all of that would be to order dozens of PCs and average the results. It would be very easy to encounter one execellent system from a very bad company or to run into a lemon from a good company.

Therefore, HardOCP should not have posted the review until all problems were resolved and after the system had been re-evaluated in working condition.

Now you have many posters making across the board observations about ATI chipsets and this computer company all based on one flawed computer.

Also, it now seems to be accepted practice on some websites to air the behind the scenes dialog in full public view. When a website becomes highly opinionated and agressive like this I think it shows a lack of professionalism.

1. Please keep in mind that me and the person that wrote the review are two different people. My opinions as editor-in-chief do not represent Chris' opinions.

2. No, we are not misleading and you suggesting we are is rediculous. I fully accept that one experience does not represent hundreds, but we make sure and stress that in our writing.

3. In our mind, the problems had been identified and we felt comfortable with publishing the evaluatino. Had we thought there were other issues we would have waited. You the reader of course benefit from perfect hindsight, whereas we do not.

4. People form opinions using our published evaluations whether they be "good" or "bad." We don't keep quiet when things are bad, otherwise there would be no real reason to read HardOCP. That said, I would rather spend our resources on telling our readers what to purchase all day long instead of what not to buy.

5. I am sorry you do not think we are professional in what we do.

 

[blvdKing]

I agree that [H] was reviewing the system as a whole, and I think they were fair in their assessment. Good review and thanks for standing your ground!

 

[1c3d0g]

I would expect that from Falcon Northwest. We aren't talking Dell value systems, we are talking about $3,000 gaming machines.



Agreed.

Well fucking said! If you just spent $3,000+ on any PC, you damn well expect it to perform as intended. In this particular case, the problem/issue is further compounded by the fact that Mr. Morley clearly stated to FNW from the beginning that he wanted a Battlefield 2 gaming system, specifically naming the game he wanted to play on it.

Now, this alone should've immediately raised a BIG RED FLAG @ FNW HQ, obviously meaning that they must not configure a PC with a crappy chipset having a known issue with this particular game. I applaud Chris for standing his ground...as a consumer, after finding out all those things and going through all that trouble, I too would return that system back, regardless of what FNW would say to me. That's my 0.03¢ (damn inflation).

 

[FrgMstr]

1) understandable
2) logical
3) as long as the problem hadn't been resolved, you can't claim it identified. you should have let falcon finish their evaluations.
4) at least wait for the story to end befor jumping to conclusion and dumping your waste in public.
5) that IS lack of professionalism, the story was not over when you posted the review. You've half-apologised for one thing, but have refused to recognise that your biggest mistake was the premature publishing of the article, regardless of what you can think or say, that's how it turns out, and it could have been avoided by a little patience.

We did NOT jump to conclusions as it was everyone's opinion that was involved that it was a chipset issue. Again you are blessed with hindsight where we were not. It was over in our minds and I am not sure how many ways I can say that.

 

[XamediX]

wow lycos, you really have a hard time comprehending.

Also someone brought up the point that there are alot of expensive things that break sometimes, cars, digicamera's, etc but the real situation is the price delta. You can get a pc for $300 or $5000 so that $5000 better have no problems due to its price delta... i mean is any one else mystified why Falcon chose that chipset when they knew before hand what game it was supposed to handle? I mean its a screw up nonetheless and this review is accurate and many more have agreed than disagreed on that.

Maybe they should start making polls for their articles.

 

[Agromahdi123]

when one has a site with this much power, and a company who is trying it seems to keep its reputation almost impeccable this is bound to happen. Yet i find no reason why the bickering should have come to this level. On one end you have [H] which, along with several other minds, misdiagnosed a problem. A problem that shoudlnt have existed in the first place because of the premium paid towards Falcon Northwest. And on the other hand you have FNW, which to me seems as though its the "A" student that got a C on a report they may have "Half Assed". Thats fine, the major issue here is the pushing thats involved. Why FNW is so obssessed with the ATi chipset and its value, i dont know maybe they have some deal worked out like dell and nVidia, but i dont care. Reviews of a persons personal experience with a machine, no matter how public they should be, should not cause presidents of respectable companies to turn into little children. Arent we all adults here?, well probably not ALL of us, but im sure we are capable of it. what i love about Kyle and Chris during this is that they never seem to become kids during tussles like this. So there were mistakes made, big deal! [H] stated they realize they were wrong in blaming the ATi chipset, and based on prior experiences they were right to judge it that way. Based on the way BFG has been making its video cards they, [H], had every reason to trust its stability. But mistakes happen, so the addendum was made, but im sure if i was Chris or Kyle i would not have liked to have Kelt on my butt about this teeny mistake i made that i admitted to the world. Why does this always happen?

 

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

My understanding is that Kyle's sentiments come from hands on experience with retail product, not some specs on a website.

We refused the sample provided by ATI directly and have purchase our own board as of last week. We will share our opinion when we have formed one.

Why do I get the feeling these statements will be nullified in a few days/weeks on the frontpage of [H]?:

I know.

I just felt that the chipset was taking a bit too much heat when the video card was at fault. It's not like the NF4 or NF3 were perfect, either. Though, I do also hate MSI in general. After the K8N Platinum problems I had, I'll never buy another one of their boards Ya bitch about the faults.......but in the end, ya build around the faults.



Or ya go back to your typewriter and boardgames.........each their own

 

[Bar81]

I'm still not quite sure why as a result of all this Kyle has decided that the ATI chipset is no good. As usual Kyle, you jumped the gun and without anything more than tech support's over the phone assesment, declared that ATI has a subpar product.

Frankly, if you were really dying to get the issue resolved and not slam something ATI (which seems to be your obsession lately) you would have either tried different components yourself to figure out what the real issue was or sent it back to FNW, allowed them to come to a final conclusion, and then properly evaluated your experience and the product.

The fact that you did none of the above and even when proven wrong about the cause of the instability insist on attacking an ATI product, that just happens to have nothing to do with the problems you experienced, once again calls into question the value of your "opinions".

Finally, what ATI motherboards using the chipset have you tried to come to the all knowing conclusion that the chipset is garbage? You've had mysterious experiences that you don't elaborate on and one large review in which Hardocp showed it had no idea what it was collectively talking about. I've used the ATI chipset in question and found it completely stable and as good as anything performance wise nvidia puts out if paired with the ULi chipset southbridge and as good as anything out there if you're not using a USB2.0 HD with their ATI southbridges.

It's just sad that this website has to resort to such cheap tactics to push its agenda.

 

[Dorsai]

I find it curious that no one seems concerned about the video card being the problem. A lot of talk about ATi's chipset and the Corsair memory but boo about the actual problem. Personaly I'd like to know if changing the video card fixed the issues with the motherboard and ram timings.

Anyone using onboard audio needs thier head checked though, we all know on board audio wastes precious CPU resources and no true gamer would do without at least an Audigy2 card. If the Frag Box came with just on board audio then that vastly reduces the value of the system as a gamers rig in my eyes.

 

[FrgMstr]

I'm still not quite sure why as a result of all this Kyle has decided that the ATI chipset is no good. As usual Kyle, you jumped the gun and without anything more than tech support's over the phone assesment, declared that ATI has a subpar product.

Frankly, if you were really dying to get the issue resolved and not slam something ATI (which seems to be your obsession lately) you would have either tried different components yourself to figure out what the real issue was or sent it back to FNW, allowed them to come to a final conclusion, and then properly evaluated your experience and the product.

The fact that you did none of the above and even when proven wrong about the cause of the instability insist on attacking an ATI product, that just happens to have nothing to do with the problems you experienced, once again calls into question the value of your "opinions".

Finally, what ATI motherboards using the chipset have you tried to come to the all knowing conclusion that the chipset is garbage? You've had mysterious experiences that you don't elaborate on and one large review in which Hardocp showed it had no idea what it was collectively talking about. I've used the ATI chipset in question and found it completely stable and as good as anything performance wise nvidia puts out if paired with the ULi chipset southbridge and as good as anything out there if you're not using a USB2.0 HD with their ATI southbridges.

It's just sad that this website has to resort to such cheap tactics to push its agenda.

Here is the only machine that was stable enough with an ATI chipset to actually get reviewed.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzgx

I am glad you have had a great enthusiast experience with their product. Maybe you could sell me the one you have and let me see if it will stand up to our measuring stick?

Honestly, I look at most of your post here as trolling. So all in all, I have personally noted your thoughts, found your accusations baseless and worthless. Thanks for sharing your opinion, although there is little value in it to me personally. There is no agenda here. If you take the time to read what we said about the chipset a year ago, we had high hopes for it. It did not do well with the high end, ATI changed their marketing strategy and moved the chip to low end sales......they did not do that by mistake. Maybe you should be upset with ATI for backtracking their product?

 

[Dan_D]

Falcon diagnosed the problem as being a video card problem. The [H] guys are all more than capable of diagnosing problems with the machine. There are some points I'd like to make on that. FIRST Other games and applications were FINE. Thus, why would you diagnose a BFG video card that works in other games and displays no issues as bad? I wouldn't, I'd have thought it was a driver or motherboard chipset issue, considering they already had issues with the Radeon Xpress 200 based motherboard. SECOND, the video card problem hasn't been verified by the [H], and it is too late now to undo that. There is no way of knowing if that was the case or not. FNW may simply be defending thier choice of motherboard for whatever reason. THIRD is that Falcon Northwest FAILED to deliver a machine to a customer that could perform the task it was purchased for. Out of the box it was a dismal failure. They had other issues besides the so called "video card issue" with ram and sound. Those are MOTHERBOARD problems.

FOURTH The [H] has admitted to the ONE and only mistake they made, which was calling it quits and sending the system back and have promised to change their policy reguarding such issues next time. The OEM system evaluation is new, and the readers and all involved need to accept that this is a new process that will have issues from time to time. FIFTH the [H] let Falcon respond publicly to the [H] review by copying this information into the fallowup article so that everyone could hear FNW's side of things. SIXTH is that any customer who purchased a system from FNW could have thrown their hands up, given up and sent the thing back for a refund since it didn't work as advertised.

So in short, Falcon screwed up, no matter how you look at it and failed to deliver a working problem free system to a customer. That is the FIRST problem and for that I think they deserved the 6.5/10. I agree that while the motherboard choices for a M-ATX system are slim, the choice of a Radeon Xpress 200 motherboard wasn't necessarily the best choice for a performance oriented machine. The faults with the mobo here may not lie with ATi, but rather MSI for the implimentation of the motherboard. They already had to get an updated BIOS for the thing once. Or it could have been video card, but if it worked for every other game, really do you buy that?

The [H] has in general done an outstanding job here. The mistake has been acknowledged and will be corrected in the future. What more can you ask for? FNW, whether or not it was video card or mobo, failed to deliver what was promised to the customer. And THAT is the bottom line.

 

[Eärendil]

4) at least wait for the story to end befor jumping to conclusion and dumping your waste in public.
5) that IS lack of professionalism, the story was not over when you posted the review. You've half-apologised for one thing, but have refused to recognise that your biggest mistake was the premature publishing of the article, regardless of what you can think or say, that's how it turns out, and it could have been avoided by a little patience.

Just how much patience is needed?
For the average consumer the story is over when the box doesn't work. Period.
Mr Average. will give X amount of time to FNW before he decides he wants to take his money and go somewhere else. He's not going to have much time or desire to banty words and mouse clicks across a phone line for 5 hours over a period of 7 days.

What is unprofessional about drawing some kind of line?
The only thing about this that comes close to unprofessional is the almost juvenile use of caps locks in FNW's president reply. And that's just nitpicking!

Both parties have acted very well IMO considering that

1) A company such as FNW obviously takes the time to look into the nature of various problems and correct them. After reading the whole back and forth emails and their exceptional tech support my rating of FNW has increased even if the review wasn't solid.
and
2) That this kind of discourse is possible due to the fact that HardOCP isn't the kind of site that just shoves things under the carpet. I want to know how many sites would release this and allow the "would've, should've, could've, why don't you's" to ensue!

It's like putting a lemon through a meat grinder, then when it doesn't do well put all the blame on the tree(ATI), the farmer(FNW), and the meat grinder(H) but not the actual lemon. Blame can only go so far then it starts working backwards.

Honestly, my opinion of FNW has increased simply because they're willing to work with a customer and they respond with such zeal to reviews to ascertain the problem. As such, I will recommend it to the buyer with tons of money but not much computer shopping savvy. But never will I spend $3200 on a system that is half the overall speed and twice the price of a comparably built computer.

In short (hah), I love this community for always making sure that HardOCP is held to such high standards and that such open ended dialogue is allowed to flourish. Kudos the comm[H]unity!

~E

 

[FrgMstr]

Well, I take pretty much all of what you say as trolling when it involves ATI, so at least we feel similarly about all the "opinions" floating around this site. Except for the fact that of course, I've actually used the hardware in question *without* any defective components outside of the motherboard.

It would be interesting for you to list out all of the ATI XPress 200 motherboards you've tried that allegedly weren't stable enough for testing.

Frankly, if you can tear yourself away from cheapshotting ATI for a moment I'll sell you my Shuttle ST20G5 with latest BIOS for what I paid for it in the forums $275 (yeah, I've already seen your previous comments on the system.) I'd LOVE to see you test it and create an incompatibility or stability issue that doesn't exist (you seem to have a knack for that) OR GASP declare it what it is, a top performing and perfectly stable ATI motherboard based product. I was using it with my X1800XL and Athlon X2 4400+, 2 GB OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum, Raptor, Maxline III, and BenQ 1640 without issue whether it be gaming or otherwise. The noise bothered me, but I should have known that going in, as any system of that size is not going to be anywhere near quiet.

I'd love to see Hardocp back up its boasts using an ATI product that's already proven stable by a user and seeing if they can actually give it a positive review.

You threw down the gauntlet. I'm answering the challenge. Care to actually back up your bravado?

Thanks, I already have one of those, please take time to read our review.

 

[BoogerBomb]

What I dont get is that Kyle still says that the problem is solely the ATI chipset. You insinuate that you think Falcon is lying about it being the video card because of how long they had the system. When one of us buy it guess what we dont get it back the next day either. Since you think their support is that low shouldnt your evaluation reflect what you think about their support and their findings?

 

[SpAmBuRgErLoRd]

Walk into any computer store and look for the cheapest machine possible. Try a circuit city or bestbuy. Most manufacturers have found that they can save a large amount of money by using inexpensive motherboards. I found that for $300-500 dollars I could pickup a full computer system monitor, printer, computer w/ Athlon 64/ Sempron and 512 MB of Ram and it would have the ever popular el-cheapo Ati X200 inside.

Manufacturers know that ATi Sounds name brand and they can really push forward and sell these lower end machines at a consumer friendly price.

I agree with HardOCP in this case the consumer recieved a lower quality board than what they paid for...


Anyone can buy an E-machine and put a $300-$500 graphics card inside and sell the computer for about $1000 more than cost to buy just because of the computers specifications. One thing I have noticed is that Motherboard quality on manufactured computers systems has gone down in quality.

I do like gateway computer's motherboards though... open one if they will let ya @ a retail store.

then look at an HP computers mobo eww! but the case is plenty shiny

 

[Eärendil]

Exactly what I thought. You are so sad. This site's "reporting" and legitimacy gets more pathetic on a daily basis.

Seems like this was a good chance to use that axe you've been grinding for a while. This discussion was about the Fragbox review, not some twittingly old chipset war between the bringer of truth and the evil lords of HardOCP.

Save your arguments for a time when your sentences aren't soiled with asinine jabs like that one.

 

[Bar81]

Seems like this was a good chance to use that axe you've been grinding for a while. This discussion was about the Fragbox review, not some twittingly old chipset war between the bringer of truth and the evil lords of HardOCP.

Save your arguments for a time when your sentences aren't soiled with asinine jabs like that one.

Thanks for bringing the word asinine into your post, it was appropriate to describe the level of reasoning involved in it.

He made a boast, I answered and he made an excuse. The only one with an axe to grind is Hardocp against ATI.

I'd still like to get an answer as to why the cheapshots against ATI were added when there was nothing wrong with the chipset per FNW. If Hardocp deemed them reliable enough when they thought it was an ATI chipset issue, why are they no longer reliable enough when it's a BFG/nvidia defective card issue?

 

[Dan_D]

Thanks for bringing the word asinine into your post, it was appropriate to describe the level of reasoning involved in it.

He made a boast, I answered and he made an excuse. The only one with an axe to grind is Hardocp against ATI.

I'd still like to get an answer as to why the cheapshots against ATI were added when there was nothing wrong with the chipset per FNW. If Hardocp deemed them reliable enough when they thought it was an ATI chipset issue, why are they no longer reliable enough when it's a BFG/nvidia defective card issue?

The thing with your posts I've disagreed with most is thinking that [H]ard|OCP has something against ATi. The [H] has reported good things about ATi video cards for YEARS. When nVidia was sucking hard with the FX 5x00 line, they infact stated that nVidia had catching up to do and thier products were sub par. This isn't nVidiaism at work here when they report things like that.

All I've seen are results that are reproducable by any one who has the equipment, *IF* they test along time same line of proceedures the [H] does. (IE not just synthetic benchmarking.) They've stated that ATi has been late to the party, and still can't really hard launch a product. Their cards are reported to be as good or better in some cases than the 6x00 and 7800 series cards. What isn't objective about that?

ATi has pulled some BS with product launches and PR crap. Kyle has simply called them out on it. That doesn't reflect against their products, just the availability of them.

 

[Eärendil]

Thanks for bringing the word asinine into your post, it was appropriate to describe the level of reasoning involved in it.

He made a boast, I answered and he made an excuse. The only one with an axe to grind is Hardocp against ATI.

Reason isn't around when we're both poking each other in such a polite manner.

But you speak of an agenda against ATI. What about that whole 9 months when Nvidia released their FX series and the 9800 series beat the living snot out of Nv? I distinctly remember large articles about "brilinear filtering" and all the "tricks" on 3d mark programs, etc etc etc. Where was the anti-ATI talk? If had money back then I would have bought the best of ATI simple because of those recommendations of HardOCP. Would I have been wrong?

 

[Bar81]

The thing with your posts I've disagreed with most is thinking that [H]ard|OCP has something against ATi. The [H] has reported good things about ATi video cards for YEARS. When nVidia was sucking hard with the FX 5x00 line, they infact stated that nVidia had catching up to do and thier products were sub par. This isn't nVidiaism at work here when they report things like that.

All I've seen are results that are reproducable by any one who has the equipment, *IF* they test along time same line of proceedures the [H] does. (IE not just synthetic benchmarking.) They've stated that ATi has been late to the party, and still can't really hard launch a product. Their cards are reported to be as good or better in some cases than the 6x00 and 7800 series cards. What isn't objective about that?

If only it were that simple. The repeated inaccurate comments about ATI (usually on the front page), the snide comments, the never ending cheapshots (like in the follow up article we're discussing here) just kill any professionalism and integrity the site is attempting to claim ownership to. The bravado earlier in this thread only to be followed by lame excuses when called on it shows a continuing pattern of bias.

Whether Hardocp was with nivida or ATI before is irrelevant. I don't care about history, I'm talking about now. What is happening on this site is deplorable and lacks any hint of evenhandedness.

Again, specifically as to the issue at hand I am still awaiting an answer from Kyle as to why:

the cheapshots against ATI were added when there was nothing wrong with the chipset per FNW. If Hardocp deemed them reliable enough when they thought it was an ATI chipset issue, why are they no longer reliable enough when it's a BFG/nvidia defective card issue?

 

[Bar81]

Reason isn't around when we're both poking each other in such a polite manner.

But you speak of an agenda against ATI. What about that whole 9 months when Nvidia released their FX series and the 9800 series beat the living snot out of Nv? I distinctly remember large articles about "brilinear filtering" and all the "tricks" on 3d mark programs, etc etc etc. Where was the anti-ATI talk? If had money back then I would have bought the best of ATI simple because of those recommendations of HardOCP. Would I have been wrong?

Please look at the post above for my comments on this matter. Simply writing articles about others or owning another's hardware doesn't make you any less biased.

The site has shown a glaring ability to ignore the truth and that's my problem. Even when they are wrong they go on and on shifting the blame. For example in this situation, the final cheapshots against the ATI chipset make no sense given FNW's claim that it was the nvidia/BFG video card issue solely. Of course, if you have an agenda, then the comments make perfect sense.

There's a distinct lack of professionalism and evenhandedness on this site and it's unsettling. The site is beginning to remind me of the government, the more it insists it's doing nothing wrong, the less inclined anyone should be to believe them.

And again, I still have not gotten a response to my question:

why the cheapshots against ATI were added when there was nothing wrong with the chipset per FNW. If Hardocp deemed them reliable enough when they thought it was an ATI chipset issue, why are they no longer reliable enough when it's a BFG/nvidia defective card issue?

 

[steeltoe]

If I spend $3000 on ANYTHING I'd prefer it to be in operating condition when I receive it. But that's just me. I could care less about [H] opinion of the mobo or the emails. They bought a system to review. The system did not work. I suppose they had to include the support process but that has nothing to do with the bottom line. System no worky. All the other stuff they can fight amongst themselves.

 

[Mav451]

I dunno man, if this is the extent of favorism, I'll take it. It's not even close to and will NEVER come close to Tom's utter f()nboyism for Intel.

And in that sense, I don't care as much. So ATi hasn't established itself--big surprise. How many members at [H] have the Xpress200? Not many. Will things change once they get established?

In terms of not liking ATi...they only do that b/c ATi waited so long from announcement to the actual release of the X1K. There would be no "editorial" if it had been out in April, so there's really no hard feelings anyway (sorry about the pun haha). The annoyance with ATi has only been with their RELEASE dates...not with the cards themselves. I'm fairly certain they won't be repeating this fiasco anyway.

 

[Dan_D]

If only it were that simple. The repeated inaccurate comments about ATI (usually on the front page), the snide comments, the never ending cheapshots (like in the follow up article we're discussing here) just kill any professionalism and integrity the site is attempting to claim ownership to. The bravado earlier in this thread only to be followed by lame excuses when called on it shows a continuing pattern of bias.

Whether Hardocp was with nivida or ATI before is irrelevant. I don't care about history, I'm talking about now. What is happening on this site is deplorable and lacks any hint of evenhandedness.

Again, specifically as to the issue at hand I am still awaiting an answer from Kyle as to why:

the cheapshots against ATI were added when there was nothing wrong with the chipset per FNW. If Hardocp deemed them reliable enough when they thought it was an ATI chipset issue, why are they no longer reliable enough when it's a BFG/nvidia defective card issue?

Well, as far as Falcon Northwest is concerned, I am having a hard time believing it to be the video card when the card worked in every other game and gave the reviewer no trouble at all during testing of the system. That doesn't sound like a video card issue to me. I think that FNW might just be saying that because the [H] made it's reservations about the chosen motherboard in the Fragbox 2. I don't really know, and the fact is after the system has left controlled test conditions, it can not be used as a reliable test sample. A new system must be used for the test results to be re-evaluated.

Calling the choice of motherboard into question hurts Falcon more than a defective video card ever could when people read the review. For all I know it's PR damage control. Either way, since the system left their hands, it is unreliable for testing.

I agree with the general assessment of the Radeon Xpress chipset, and I agree with the review score of 6.5/10. I am not saying that a defective video card isn't a possibility, but you have to admit, it seems unlikely given that it worked for everything else. The review also showed issues that were related to the chipset/motherboard. Why is that not valid? Even *IF* the motherboard or it's chipset aren't the cause of the BF2 issue. I still think the conclusion about the system and board are valid.

 

[Bar81]

Well, as far as Falcon Northwest is concerned, I am having a hard time believing it to be the video card when the card worked in every other game and gave the reviewer no trouble at all during testing of the system. That doesn't sound like a video card issue to me. I think that FNW might just be saying that because the [H] made it's reservations about the chosen motherboard in the Fragbox 2. I don't really know, and the fact is after the system has left controlled test conditions, it can not be used as a reliable test sample. A new system must be used for the test results to be re-evaluated.

Calling the choice of motherboard into question hurts Falcon more than a defective video card ever could when people read the review. For all I know it's PR damage control. Either way, since the system left their hands, it is unreliable for testing.

I agree with the general assessment of the Radeon Xpress chipset, and I agree with the review score of 6.5/10. I am not saying that a defective video card isn't a possibility, but you have to admit, it seems unlikely given that it worked for everything else. The review also showed issues that were related to the chipset/motherboard. Why is that not valid? Even *IF* the motherboard or it's chipset aren't the cause of the BF2 issue. I still think the conclusion about the system and board are valid.

I'm simply pointing out the shadiness of what's going on. It's perfectly plausable that FNW is CYA but then why would Hardocp put complete faith in them and repeat that faith in a follow up article when it comes to the alleged ATI problems but somehow lose complete faith when it's an alleged nvidia/BFG issue? Something stinks.

I'm really interested in your comments regarding agreeing with the ATI chipset evaluation. Have you used the chipset in question?

Finally, assuming the motherboard had issues, how Hardocp extrapolated that into the XPress 200 being only good for email is beyond any scope of logic. I think all readers should require more than unsubstantiated claims from the site.

I'll repeat again, I'm offering my Shuttle ST20G5 to Hardocp to purchase to put this to a rest once and for all. A site looking for the "truth" would certainly jump at the chance to close its credibility gap.

 

[phatfong]

Hard OCP did NO wrong with this review.

They reviewed a system from an end users view and reported their exp with it. A few of you are crying foul when there is no foul.

OCP didn't have to apologize to any one or any company, after reading this whole entertaining ordeal the only ones that should apologize are the ones that are getting upset with the review.

 

[Dan_D]

I'm simply pointing out the shadiness of what's going on. It's perfectly plausable that FNW is CYA but then why would Hardocp put complete faith in them and repeat that faith in a follow up article when it comes to the alleged ATI problems but somehow lose complete faith when it's an alleged nvidia/BFG issue? Something stinks.

I'm really interested in your comments regarding agreeing with the ATI chipset evaluation. Have you used the chipset in question?

Finally, assuming the motherboard had issues, how Hardocp extrapolated that into the XPress 200 being only good for email is beyond any scope of logic. I think all readers should require more than unsubstantiated claims from the site.

I'll repeat again, I'm offering my Shuttle ST20G5 to Hardocp to purchase to put this to a rest once and for all. A site looking for the "truth" would certainly jump at the chance to close its credibility gap.

Actually I have used the chipset. I work as a service tech (part time) (IT full time) and I have used plenty of Gateway and E-Machine (some others as well) systems (In for repair or upgrade) that use the Radeon Xpress chipset. Specifically I've had issues adding video cards to those systems. Even when the power supply is sufficient or replaced with a more powerfull card, I've had issues with even ATi cards working and detecting properly in those boards. One of the systems I worked on had what looked like the MSI version of the board also. I was not able to get a Radeon X600XT All-In-Wonder card to work in that unit no matter what I did.

I did encounter stability issues with one unit that I could not fix until the motherboard was replaced, interestingly, Gateway sent the same motherboard, with a revised part number and a different BIOS version. (Not sure what else may have been different with the board. They did look the same though.)

Granted, my experience with these chipsets amounts to only about 6 or 7 units or so personally. Other techs in the shop have had some issues, but I've seen the lions share of them.

I would also like to say, while I've had issues with the Xpress 200 chipset, I've also seen NF4 and other chipset issues from every company a time or two. I am sure there are plenty of people happily using the Xpress 200 chipset without problems. Also, often its the case that with computer hardware works MOST of the time. The issues usually crop up in more rare system configurations. I doubt there are alot of 7800GTX's on MSI Radeon Xpress200 motherboards. So I can't vouch for that configuration.

 

[plywood99]

I'll repeat again, I'm offering my Shuttle ST20G5 to Hardocp to purchase to put this to a rest once and for all. A site looking for the "truth" would certainly jump at the chance to close its credibility gap.

And just how would your one working system put this to rest? If it's good for you it must be perfect then???

 

[Bar81]

Actually I have used the chipset. I work as a service tech (part time) (IT full time) and I have used plenty of Gateway and E-Machine (some others as well) systems (In for repair or upgrade) that use the Radeon Xpress chipset. Specifically I've had issues adding video cards to those systems. Even when the power supply is sufficient or replaced with a more powerfull card, I've had issues with even ATi cards working and detecting properly in those boards. One of the systems I worked on had what looked like the MSI version of the board also. I was not able to get a Radeon X600XT All-In-Wonder card to work in that unit no matter what I did.

I did encounter stability issues with one unit that I could not fix until the motherboard was replaced, interestingly, Gateway sent the same motherboard, with a revised part number and a different BIOS version. (Not sure what else may have been different with the board. They did look the same though.)

Granted, my experience with these chipsets amounts to only about 6 or 7 units or so personally. Other techs in the shop have had some issues, but I've seen the lions share of them.

That's interesting. It may be that the early boards had issues which would make sense given that it is a new chipset. However, given that this unit was a new build I'd probably say it was unlikely to be an old revision of the motherboard. Granted, I've only used the boards recently, but I've encountered no issues in my setup with either Athlon 64 or X2, 1MB or 2MB OCZ configurations, X800 XT PE or X1800 XL, or two different PSUs, one a 600W SilenX unit and one a 300W fanless Silverstone unit. That's what really makes no sense as if the XPress 200 was only good for email as Kyle claims, I'm not quite sure how I miraculously got it to work for gaming, encoding, office apps, and yes, email.

 

[Dan_D]

That's interesting. It may be that the early boards had issues which would make sense given that it is a new chipset. However, given that this unit was a new build I'd probably say it was unlikely to be an old revision of the motherboard. Granted, I've only used the boards recently, but I've encountered no issues in my setup with either Athlon 64 or X2, 1MB or 2MB OCZ configurations, X800 XT PE or X1800 XL, or two different PSUs, one a 600W SilenX unit and one a 300W fanless Silverstone unit. That's what really makes no sense as if the XPress 200 was only good for email as Kyle claims, I'm not quite sure how I miraculously got it to work for gaming, encoding, office apps, and yes, email.

Well, I can understand where his comments come from. That chipset and the current ATi south bridge it's paired with do have features that are sub par to the nForce 4. (USB performance, SATA 150 only and so on). In addition to that, many if not most all the boards that use that chipset are lower end, micro-ATX motherboards. Certainly, all the motherboards I've seen with the chipset were M-ATX. The more enthusiast targeted boards use the ULi SB chipset.

Not saying everyone will have a problem, it could be as I've said MSI's implimentation of the chipset on that particular board. The ram problems mentioned in the review certainly support that possibility.

 

[Bar81]

And just how would your one working system put this to rest? If it's good for you it must be perfect then???

Alright I'll step you through it. First off, learn to read. Nobody ever said the chipset is perfect. There is no such thing.

Kyle claims that because he believes (contrary to much trusted by Hardocp - at least when it goes with their agenda - FNW) the MSI board is the problem.

Because the motherboard is allegedly the problem then the ATI XPress 200 chipset must be garbage and only good for email.

Kyle makes unsubstantiated claims to his experiences with several XPress 200 based mobos.

Kyle concludes that the XPress 200 chipset is garbage and that the chipset is no good.

Thus, he believes that ATI chipset=crap

A perfectly working and top performing ATI based motherboard would undermine his blanket assertion about the ATI chipset. More clearly, if the system I have works as expected then the ATI chipset /= crap and Kyle has jumped to another one of his wild and unsubstantiated "conclusions" regarding ATI products. If ATI chipsets were only good for email then no one would be able to use them for anything else. Besides, he's the one who was pounding his chest making claims and then backing down when called on it.

 

[Eärendil]

I'd be interested in seeing the results, however, 1 out of however many of these produced in a year is hardly a good sampling.

To clarify, Bar81 are you arguing for this particular handling of an ATI chipset review or the reviews in general? You claim Kyle has come to yet another unsubstantiated claim, but you've only cited this instance as being particularly biased towards ATI. What other instances are particularly shady in your view?

 

[Bar81]

Well, I can understand where his comments come from. That chipset and the current ATi south bridge it's paired with do have features that are sub par to the nForce 4. (USB performance, SATA 150 only and so on). In addition to that, many if not most all the boards that use that chipset are lower end, micro-ATX motherboards. Certainly, all the motherboards I've seen with the chipset were M-ATX.

Not saying everyone will have a problem, it could be as I've said MSI's implimentation of the chipset on that particular board. The ram problems mentioned in the review certainly support that possibility.

But that's not what he's claiming. Hes not going on and on about the lack of features on the board. He's specifically attacking the stability of the chipset and the uses for it. Again, the features you are talking about have no relevance to 99% of users out there. The USB issue is so overblown it's just sad. Unless you are using a USB2.0 harddrive the performance of the USB is irrelevant. In fact, I'd question why you're using a USB hard drive when Firewire is a vastly superior solution for external storage. Second, what features exactly does SATA 300 offer that are useful in the desktop environment. NCQ? Please, I've tried it, it has no relevance on a desktop system. In fact the only thing that SATA 300 brings is an incresed bandwidth that you'd need over 2 74GB Raptors in RAID 0 to take advantage of (how many people are running that).

And let's talk about the subpar features of the nforce4 boards that Kyle and crew never seem to note. The SATA HD corruption with NCQ enabled (not a useful feature when it kills your data) and the never ending IDE driver woes that have crept into the SATA optical support area.

When you see this site go on and on and on making baseless and completely unsubstantiated claims while overlooking those of other manufacturers then you have to question their credibility and request answers.

Of course, the site does tend to go quite silent when questions are asked that they don't want to answer

 

[Bar81]

I'd be interested in seeing the results, however, 1 out of however many of these produced in a year is hardly a good sampling.

Well, that's exactly my point. How can one make a blanket assertion about something with maybe two samples TOTAL (that's of course overlooking all the alleged mobos this site has used)?

 

[Eärendil]

See the post juuuust before this. That's the last time I'm editing anything this thread goes too fast.

 

[plywood99]

Alright I'll step you through it. First off, learn to read. Nobody ever said the chipset is perfect. There is no such thing.

Kyle claims that because he believes (contrary to much trusted by Hardocp - at least when it goes with their agenda - FNW) the MSI board is the problem.

Because the motherboard is allegedly the problem then the ATI XPress 200 chipset must be garbage and only good for email.

Kyle makes unsubstantiated claims to his experiences with several XPress 200 based mobos.

Kyle concludes that the XPress 200 chipset is garbage and that the chipset is no good.

Thus, he believes that ATI chipset=crap

A perfectly working and top performing ATI based motherboard would undermine his blanket assertion about the ATI chipset. More clearly, if the system I have works as expected then the ATI chipset /= crap and Kyle has jumped to another one of his wild and unsubstantiated "conclusions" regarding ATI products. If ATI chipsets were only good for email then no one would be able to use them for anything else. Besides, he's the one who was pounding his chest making claims and then backing down when called on it.

Uhh, I was talking about your one shuttle setup, and Kyle doing a review of it. Wouldn't make sense. Your offer is no good. Think about it will you?

This was a review of an oem build, not of a "well my computer works just fine so there." How would him testing your system prove anything?

Did you not read the article, specifically where FNW said they have had problems with this mobo???

 

[Bar81]

I'd be interested in seeing the results, however, 1 out of however many of these produced in a year is hardly a good sampling.

To clarify, Bar81 are you arguing for this particular handling of an ATI chipset review or the reviews in general? You claim Kyle has come to yet another unsubstantiated claim, but you've only cited this instance as being particularly biased towards ATI. What other instances are particularly shady in your view?

Well, that would be derailing the topic at hand. We've had numerous "discussions" regarding this. For example, a while ago there was this HUGE front page post about ATI's alleged delivery issues for all of these past video cards. They just happen to overlook that they were blatantly incorrect as to all but the X800 XT PE. Another example is their discovery of a new policy to only review products available on the market (ie to not review the X1800 XT) Strangely this "new policy" just happen to be applied to a new ATI product. The policy was not applied to the nvidia nforce 6150 boards. It's just a litany of comical blunders on this site. And all you ever get is Kyle claiming how he's so righteous because he sticks to his opinion (sticking to a a factually unsupportable opinion seems like a strange way to show your "independence and truthfullness"). It takes a big man to face the truth, and unfortunately this site doesn't seem to have any of them. So, it's left to normal posters like me to call the constant bias out.

 

[Bar81]

Uhh, I was talking about your one shuttle setup, and Kyle doing a review of it. Wouldn't make sense. Your offer is no good. Think about it will you?

This was a review of an oem build, not of a "well my computer works just fine so there." How would him testing your system prove anything?

Did you not read the article, specifically where FNW said they have had problems with this mobo???

I'm not trying to put you down, but you obviously don't understand logic. If someone makes a claim that everything is like so and you show that even a SINGLE thing is not like so, then the original assertion is disproved. It only takes one example to disprove a blanket assertion while it takes a representative sample to properly support a blanket assertion.